Culture's commercial benefits

ABBA is a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1972 by four young people with musical talent and the willingness to try.

ABBA's name is derived from the first letter of each of the first names of its members.

They became one of the most commercially successful acts in the history of popular music, topping the charts worldwide from 1974-1982.

ABBA is one of the most successful groups ever to have taken part in the Eurovision Song Contest. The group is estimated to have sold over 500 million records, making it one of the best-selling groups of all time and contributing to the stability of the Swedish economy for a decade.

Having listened to the Calypso Monarch finals this year, it seems obvious to me that the musical talent in this country, if encouraged by expert marketing, could outrank energy income over the decade to come.

As we go through the predicted recessions and economic depressions ahead, given the continuing uncertainty of the Dragon Field ever coming to pass, perhaps if we realise the talent and creative energy of TT’s people, and implement Machel Montano’s advice to put Carnival studies on all school curricula, from primary school up, rewarding associated entrepreneurial talent, "We can make it if we try."

As the Marquis of Salisbury said, "No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by life as that you should never trust experts" who have seen Carnival as mere entertainment. It is not. It is potentially one of the major building blocks of an economy and an entire and unique culture.

In this time of uncertainty, people are increasingly turning to their employers and business leaders as a source of truth, rather than their institutions and government officials, according to a new global survey by Harvard Business School’s Institute for the Study of Business in Global Society and the Edelman Trust Institute.

It is a phenomenon that aeons ago arose from the growth of standards developed by the wisdom of proliferating faiths in human abilities. Supported by the more admirable tenets of beneficial socialism, it began as an astonishing concatenation of spiritual and cultural explosions that took place in a short evolutionary time – a few thousand out of several hundred thousand years of history.

As the astrologists and psychic historians are telling us, we are moving into a totally new period in human evolution, which exhibits temporal, spiritual, intellectual, existential and historical changes, resulting in "shifts in human consciousness."

Leaders of change are once more emerging in all spheres, including culture and commerce. Change will continue to expand over the next decade. Watch out for it!

Recently, some managers were criticised for dabbling in metaphysics, or a very small part of it, facing public and private ridicule for so doing, which is not surprising.

They are not unique: a couple of decades ago, one expensive training consultant gave business executives in TT plastic “mood rings” as part of their sensitivity-training workshops.

The plastic changed colour as stress levels went up, owing to changes in blood pressure (therefore body heat), resulting from a stress-inducing exercise; but participants were told it was a psychic warning to relax pressure on how they managed their staff.

I don’t know, maybe it was? Whatever you believe will work often does.

But, as Carnival always shows us, every change results in a pushback. The petty criticism of Rick Ramoutar’s talent that impelled him to ascend to the position of Chutney Soca Monarch; Machel Montano advocating for the teaching of calypso culture in all schools, thereby winning him Calypso Monarch title; and Nailah raising chutney culture recognition to an intellectual level most people had not realised was there, by winning an “Intellectual Chutney” title – all three valuable manifestations of socio-political change are simply tiny examples of a much wider phenomenon that we are told is taking place.

As prize money this year was distributed in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, more than most citizens in the audience earn in a year, the message was sent: culture with discipline has a commercial benefit.

It is not just there for entertainment. If you listen and combine it with Machel’s academic recommendation, which teaches the same discipline that steelband practice does, you come up with an epiphany about a path to save TT from the next recession (think of the revolutionary effect that ABBA had on the Swedish economy and the foreign exchange it brought in).

Machel took a whole year off work to go back to school, as other outstanding professionals such as economist Terrence Farrell did, to get a law degree.

Why do men of this calibre make these sacrifices? Learning more about the theory behind what they are already successful at.

Farrell is a man of impeccable ethical character who has more than once withdrawn from situations he saw as false or simply politically manipulative and unproductive.

Machel not only sacrificed a year’s income, but also won the admiration of an entire community by giving a car to his supportive mother.

The wheel is turning. Ethics in business dealings are drawing admiration from staff and society. Is it the universal revulsion and ridicule showcased almost weekly in the media, exposing corruption among those in positions of power defensively parroting: "I have done nothing wrong," as they are led to court?

Ethical standards that are seldom mentioned may just become prerequisite qualifications for future positions on boards of directors, if this keeps up.

Something different is surely going on.